I
was on the road by 8am and arrived in Kokstad about 9.30am - meeting Milner
Snell, the Chair of the Kokstad Museum, at the pre-arranged spot of the Wimpy
outside the town. Milner had organised an article about my visit in the Kokstad
Advertiser newspaper in August and the article was perfectly presented -
I was very happy with it.

Although I had once spent many years at Ixopo it was my first trip to Kokstad
- and the roads and heavy traffic (big slow trucks) reminded me why. On the
road I passed Umzimkulu where
Strachan's store had once stood when I worked in the bank in
the 1970s; and Rietvlei where Smith Pommer had once hung out with his "bandits".
It is at Rietvlei that the Griquas of Kokstad still have title to two large
tracts of land that have now been taken over by African squatters - squatters
they cannot get to leave despite appeals to the courts. The road to Kokstad
was speckled with dozens of large and small shanty towns like the ones that
had sprung up on Griqua land.
Yet this isolated region
was once Africa's richest when it comes to trade tokens!

Image right: Article about "Children of the Mist"
that appeared in the Kokstad Advertiser on 24th August 2006 (pg 9)

Kokstad was disappointing and without Milner's help we would never have seen
any of the Griqua sites like the site of the first settlement at Mount Currie,
the Griqua Church in which Dower did all the beautiful carpentry, the Kokstad
Museum which was being renovated and the various monuments - as well as a
trip to Matatiele - the beautiful township nestled in the foothills of the
Drakensberg and near the tragic Ongeluksnek where the devastated Griquas
first entered what was then known as Nomansland. (More below the pics showing
my trip to Kokstad)

The road leading into

Umzimkulu

Umzimkulu town

The typical African shanty towns

that now line the road

The natural vegetation - pretty

The historic Rietvlei - now just

another African shanty

Approaching Kokstad

The most saddening part about my trip to Kokstad was the reality of the position
that the Griqua people have been left in. They were forcefully moved to just
two streets in Kokstad by the Apartheid government in the 1960s. These two
streets are dust bowls today - the African Government post-1994 decided to
upgrade the streets occupied by the Griquas because the Nationalist White
Government pre-1994 had let them fall into disrepair. After stripping off
all the tar in
preparation or relaying the roads they ran out of money
and today the Griquas have houses on potholed and run down streets that reflect
the black government's failure to treat the Griqua fairly.
You can see my
article on Kokstad at this link.

Image right: The school being built at Kokstad funded
by Oprah Winfrey

During my time in Kokstad I was told by Griquas how affirmative action which
had created so many jobs for the blacks had by-passed the Griqua who
were not seen as black and did not form part of the racial mix required in
the larger businesses. As a result the Griqua had become increasingly
impoverished. The Griqua leaders like John de Bruin now worked as carpenters
on the new black school near Kokstad that has been funded by Oprah Winfrey.
Her humanitarian work in this area and others is fantastic.

Presenting "Children of the Mist"
to Audrey Steenekamp Curator of
the Kokstad Museum

Presenting "Children of the Mist"
to Milner Snell

James Cole's store at Cedarville
on the road to Matatiele

The road to Matatiele

The wide streets of Matatiele

The quaint Museum at Matatiele

Griqua Church built out of matches

St Michael's Anglican Church in
Cedarville

The road back to Kokstad

The beautiful scenery

The "Droewig" (sad) valley where
Pommer was forced to eat his dogs
to survive

In the evening we went and met John and Cyril de Bruin, the elders of the
Griqua Community in Kokstad, at their home. The two men Cyril (82) and John
(75) do not look their age and are as sprightly as 30 year olds.

After chatting and discussing the book "Children of the Mist" Cyril
de Bruin said he was delighted that we had met because he was concerned that
it was a "white man's" book and not balanced. After our meeting he said that
he now felt comfortable endorsing the book to the wider Griqua community
and Milner said that our meeting with the two brothers had been the most
important of the day.

We then went to dinner with "Pie" Dorning, James Cole's granddaughter and
the couple who had kindly put us up for the evening.